A Kinder, Gentler Strategy On U.s. Rice Exports

August 27, 1989|By George Gunset.

America`s 25,000 rice growers have shifted their approach to opening Japan to U.S. exports from retaliation demands made in the heat of last fall`s presidential campaign to the slower process of international trade negotiations.

The rice growers, led by the Rice Millers Association, filed the first complaint under the tougher new trade law approved by Congress last summer, demanding that the U.S. retaliate if Japan remained unwilling to open its market to American-grown rice.

Clayton Yeutter, then U.S. trade representative and now secretary of agriculture, rejected the petition.

He called the Japanese rice policies ``indefensible`` and

``intolerable,`` but said accepting the complaint would damage U.S.-Japanese relations and undermine global trade negotiations.

It is those negotiations of 96 countries under the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade -aimed at eliminating trade distortions and barriers in several areas, including agriculture-that growers are using to focus pressure on Japan, said David Graves, president of the rice trade group.

``What we are seeking is only 10 percent of the total Japanese market for rice for all exporters including the U.S. to be phased in over four years,``

Graves said. ``We figure U.S. rice sales to Japan would total about $650 million a year under such a plan.``

Graves said that officials of the trade representative`s office and the Agriculture Department have given assurances that rice won`t be set aside in the trade negotiations. He expects the Japanese, ``as good poker players,``

won`t budge from hard-line positions until the last possible moment.

The U.S. produces about 7 million metric tons of rice a year, about half of which is exported, mainly to Europe and the Middle East. Domestic usage of the crop has been increasing in recent years as new food products have attracted consumer demand.

Rice production is centered in five states, led by Arkansas. The others are California, Texas, Louisiana and Mississippi.